The Puppet Queen
by Unfortunate
Summary: Skulcking is an evil occupation. Tom is skulcking. Why are you sneaking Mr. Riddle? .
1. The Puppet Queen

*The Puppet Queen*  
  
Summary: An odd couple- Ginny/Tom. Tom is thinking (gleefully) about ruining Ginny's life and turning her, his cherie, his cherry, into a stone, his little china doll. This is when Ginny is 11 and then like, 20. None, but the Chamber stuff really happened, but Tom can still imagine............  
  
Disclaimer: Verily disclaimed. ~  
  
She's so naïve that I laugh. She simply is the picture of a doll, a china porcelain doll. White skin with freckles dabbed on by an artist's brush, wide eyes surrounded by enormous lashes.......... The first time I saw her I wondered if I laid her on the ground her eyes would close like that battered baby doll at the orphanage.  
  
It had been the favorite doll in the orphanage. It was old, and falling apart, but you could see someone loved it very well. Once, at midnight, I'd taken the doll, and I'd undressed it and redressed it in a lovely ball gown I'd transfigured and I'd laid her on ground. Her eyes shut as I leaned her back, those blank glass eyes. The hair was black, and falling out, but those eyes- those were hers.  
  
She is so unassuming- her greatest downfall. She's a danger to those around her for she can be controlled so simply. Just give the girl a book and she'll give you her soul.  
  
"Oh, Tom! I've missed you so!" are words I probably will hear if I ever show myself to her. She thinks she can escape, the poor little dear. She dreams of me still. Sometimes she cries, tear trickling between her lashes, eyes getting red and her nose too, and I just watch......... she doesn't tell anyone.  
  
I can see her picture of me in a dream. I'm on a horse, a huge white one in....... armor of all things. And she's in this flower and silk dress like she was some fragile Hermia instead of Lady Macbeth she is.  
  
I remember what she said when I'd taken possession of her and made her write those messages in chicken's blood........... "Help me Tom; I don't know what's happening to me!" Help me........ I fear I may die of laughing. Such a fool, only eleven.  
  
She's no longer eleven.  
  
When she was eleven I thought she was a fool. She WAS a fool, but.......... I cannot help but wonder what she was compared to what she IS. What she is is an angel, but one so pityingly helpless you'd think God had abandoned her if there was such thing as God. I suppose the best comparison I can make is that of a cherry. She was a seed at eleven, nothing more then potential.  
  
Her growth was stunted for awhile. I kept her from the sun and brought her into the darkness. Then when I was gone she started to blossom. She flowered and was ready to bear fruit- fruit of dreams, fulfillment of her dreams.  
  
Of course I took back my doll.  
  
Slowly I have drunk her dry, like a hypothetical parasite. I left her with nothing more then her core, a stone, a cherry pit.  
  
Cherie, cherry......  
  
She is nothing.  
  
Even now I look back to my favorite picture of us. I was at the height of my power through Ginny. Light flickered- disheartened fighting against the shadows. My doll was on my lap. Her head turned at just the right angle to come under my chin. Hair the same texture of silk was everywhere. I folded her hands to sit in her lap and she sat on my lap with her knees folded. I whispered sweet menace into her ear as she stared, unseeing into the shadows. Her eyes were blank and she was too pale to be healthy. I could imagine thousands in front of us filling the cavern to the brim dancing and pleading. Servants would come up with bloody wine and I could devour crimson cherries one by one. If anyone faltered they could die- blood running through the cave- people laughing, drinking- and me at its head.  
  
I'd signal and dancers would run up, tripping on their translucent clothes. They'd twirl prettily and I'd watch. Then one would smile a 'come hither' smile out of the corner of her mouth at a servant before turning blank- faced to me and I'd feel humor. I'd gesture her forward and she'd scream and fall to her knees and then the very man she'd been smiling at would drag her forward to my feet and slice her pale throat. Blood would stain the throne like it was a sacrificial alter and Ginny would watch the fountain.  
  
She'd been in her little schoolgirl uniform at the time. So flawless and faultless. So hurt on the inside now and feeling ever so weak.  
  
That was the night Harry Potter had come. We'd only had an hour or more so, I knew that. I'd inhaled too sharply and she collapsed against me drained of years for the moment. I'd taken her in my arms and laid her on a bed of cursed flowers, bloody roses every one. Silly little girl she was.  
  
I paid my worship to my life source, my savior. I'd kissed her lips slowly, but she was gone already, locked into her elegant little mind. I still have her trapped in her dirty little world even now.  
  
Lusting after Harry Potter, the icon, in love with me if there ever was such a thing as love. She'd have forgiven me the world in an instant I knew, but I didn't care. Even now when she is steps from being Harry Potter's wife- a status she's dreamed of since she was ten.  
  
Let her.  
  
Let her have what she's always wanted, because I know she'll always be mine. Innocent little Virginia Weasley trying to hide for the big bad past?  
  
Can't hide forever dear.  
  
You'll be mine in the end I whisper at the back of your mind.  
  
Kiss me in your dreams love, I'm still here.  
  
Love me.  
  
Hate me.  
  
Curse me.  
  
Want me.  
  
Need me.  
  
Bite me.  
  
Beg me.  
  
Still here love, have you in my arms, hold your heart.  
  
Think you can run, then run. It's your dream my fleeting darling. You can hide anywhere, I won't come looking. I don't need to. I'm there all along.............  
  
She sleeping now, I can feel her wherever she is. She's everything I've hated in myself. Muggle loving, dirty. I feel as if when she dies I could be free, but I could never kill her, break my doll.  
  
If I opened up that pulsing vein in my wrist I could sooner be free.  
  
But why hate yourself when I could hate her? When I could hate what my cherie represented? I could kill Harry Potter's heart with her, break his will. He's holding poison too close to his heart.  
  
Besides, I could always use a puppet queen.  
  
Imagine- I'm on a stage and she is attached to strings. Her head is limp and her feet dangle onto the floor trailing a clean patch in the dusty theater. The faded blue cushions on the chair add dust to the air and when the sodium yellow lights shine down they become blurry.  
  
We're alone.  
  
Slowly she is dragged in a torturous circle, strings pulling her white bejeweled hands into the air. A golden ring winks from her ring finger, all that's left of Harry Potter; he'd died in an attempt to reach her.  
  
Her dress was white, an innocent color. It was slit up her thigh and tied by a rusty iron cord. The bottom was stained red from the blood of her lover and it made the scarlet polish on her dainty fingers burn like the devil's eyes.  
  
The strings twirl her, helpless mignonette. I lazily throw my hand into the air and she is dragged that way. She twirls like a falling bird, descending from the heavens. The thick light pools off her hair and her white skin like a beacon.  
  
Her eyes are closed and she's breathing faintly. Slowly the sinful mouth, painted as blood red as her hair opens and she shrieks. Her arms pinwheel widely and she falls as the strings lose their tautness. She's inches from me with her arms tied into the air and I capture her tainted mouth.  
  
She falls.  
  
On the ground she lays, broken, eyes open and glassy. I can see her pulse in her throat so I know she's not dead, but she is not able to resist me any longer. I pick her up and her head lolls back so I kiss her throat and her shoulders......  
  
And then the image fades out and I'm in agony. It takes effort to breathe. I look and I find the tenuous yet unbreakable connection with Ginny and I can't let her go........... She haunts me in my half-conscious state and I know with her I'm going to win.  
  
She'll be my freedom and my savior and then my puppet queen. She'll never need a throne- she can sit in my lap. I can kiss her hair and watch as her friends are brought before her staring, unseeing eyes, and watch as she gives their death orders.......  
  
When she wakes I can let Nagini lick away the tears from her face and tell her it's a dream........  
  
She'll trust me.  
  
She ALWAYS trusts me.  
  
And then I'll make her my wife, always and forever, until I get tired of my most darling plaything......... everyone grows out of their toys..........  
  
~  
  
Blank eyes staring  
  
Look around  
  
Strings drag your body off the ground  
  
Faded blue cushions  
  
Add dust to air  
  
Black bows imprison your fire-light hair  
  
House lights are gone  
  
Stage lights dim  
  
You twirl about at my every whim  
  
Blood mouth painted,  
  
Movement's sage,  
  
You're the Queen of the Haunted Stage  
  
Dressed like innocence  
  
Bride in white,  
  
Married to me- the phantom of the night  
  
Helpless marionette  
  
Slowly twirl,  
  
You're only a pretty dolly, girl  
  
Open your mouth  
  
Try to scream  
  
Darling, you can't, you're my puppet queen 


	2. Doubting Tom

**_

* * *

Doubting Tom_**

* * *

**Summary**: This is one of the dreams Tom talks about. Ginny's wondering why she has them; she wonders why she can't get away. Poor little Ginny, stuck in the world Tom has made for her. Why won't he leave her alone? Why does she fall for him every time? Well this time, she's doubting Tom.

**Disclaimer**: Verily disclaimed.

* * *

Every single night since just about a year ago, in fact the very day that Tom- Lord Voldemort was defeated I'm twisted by agony of beauty. I'm certifiably in love with Harry Potter, I'm his fiancée, there will be a June wedding. Unfortunately, I don't ever have dreams of Harry Potter.

I fall asleep to the soft breathing of Harry in my ear and I can feel his arms wrapped around me, but night comes in swiftly and unassuming. The arms lengthen and the fingers elongate. His head leans into my neck and I can feel thin lips smiling cruelly. His hands stroke my throat.

Will this be the night he tightens them? No, he removes them slowly and picks a flower from the field of tulips in their iridescent colors and holds it up to my hair. Slowly stroking the blossom with one hand his other hand slides caressingly up the perfect evergreen stem where it rests, meaningfully on the base of the bloom. With a quick twist of his fingers he snaps the blossom off and gives me a smile of innocence.

"Why did you do that Tom?" I can't help asking. He looks at me. He _really_ looks at me ;like none of my brothers, none of my friends, nobody ever has, as if he's stealing my soul in a Dementer's Kiss, but holding my hand like a young lover might. It reminds me of why I was seduced by him in the first place, but I'm older now, even if in the dream of preserved as a fourteen year old, he can't hurt me now.

"Why?" he says, considering. "Why not? The flower was pulling the stem down. The flower is making it mortal. Stems can stand forever; they never die in the cold. So, tell me, why not?"

For a moment I don't know what to say, this is too much logic for a romantic's mind to take. Then I look past the words to the flower. "Look at that now Tom. It's ugly. Look what you've done Tom, you've ruined its beauty." He doesn't answer, just gives me a knowing smile and strokes my hair.

The field sinks into mist and I'm standing by a foggy lakeshore where cherry petals sway in the trees. The air is damp and it smells of cleanliness, of purity. I can hear silk swaying along my feet and I look down at the gown I'm wearing. It feels like I'm going to the Ball, like I could afford to go in what was new and lovely for once.

I _know_ he's there. _Come on Tom, I can take you any day. Not eleven anymore, and you can't fool me again._

* * *

_**He was a man, take him for all in all,  
I shall not look upon his like again.**_

* * *

Misty morning is parted by a large figure, looming up like an Arthurian legend. Ah, here's the boy himself. _Come on Mr. Immortal; let's see your dazzling circus now._ Let's see your sleight of hand, the glitter, the sparkle. Let's see your acrobatic miracle astride your noble steed. _Dazzle me Tom_, make me gasp and scream. Ensnare me just this one time.

He leaps off his horse with a practiced smoothness. I bite back a tiny sigh at the swift romance of it all. Would Harry ever do something like this? Would he woo me on a Firebolt Platinum in Quidditch robes?

No, because the perfect man is not into the seduction of the legend, only in the personality and pleasuring grace of beauty in his girl. Harry would no more romance me with anything besides a fumbled kiss and a spurious line of devotedness then go evil. Only the wicked are into myths of passion.

The horse vanishes in a cloud of multi-colored stems. I pick one up.

Foxglove- so typical of Tom and Tom's cunning and humor. Slip a drop of liquid into his glass of wine and propose a toast? Lucreza Borgia's old tricks would take care of dear Tom. Beautiful, wicked Lucreza Borgia, the goddess of a family of the sinful.

He took my hand and led me to the water. We sat on the ground. I felt the dress getting ruined, but couldn't find the effort to care about the flowery creation. Tom could replace it in his pathetic little dream world.

His pathetic, entirely unworldly world in which there was no sound beside the smothered hum of my breathing. You could almost hear Tom's smile as he strokes my hair, lying behind me. The peace lay like a blanket over the two of us for what seemed like hours until suddenly I realize he isn't there.

He's standing in front of me suddenly. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but there's strings attached to my elbows and hands with a cord wrapped around my waist. I think about screaming, but I can't, this is terrifying. He's trapped me here. I try to wake up, _please please please please..._

With that Mona Lisa grin on his face glazed into my eye I feel myself lifted from the riverbank. The dress fades into a white gown. This isn't my dream, this is Tom's, this can't be my dream, it can't be. I struggle to see if I can get free, but I'm stuck in the ropes. Helpless and alone, I want to cry.

A hand on my face soothes me. I look into eyes greener then a poinsettia leaf with a slight scar marring his forehead. "Harry," I sob out, and the world comes to a jarring halt like I'm thrown from the balcony in Romeo and Juliet, but Romeo catches me. _Dear sweet Harry, nothing can ever hurt you._

I see my hand, attached by the strings, being pulled up, a glittering dagger clutched in it, it's pulled closer and closer to Harry like I want to embrace him. I struggle to stop myself. Harry pull back, run Harry.

* * *

_**Is this a dagger which I see before me,  
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.  
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.  
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible  
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but  
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,  
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?**_

* * *

Too late.

His eyes widen and he slumps. Why isn't he falling? What's the matter with him, why's he just limp? Then I see the strings holding him. Around me there's clapping everywhere. I turn my head over my shoulder and see a glittering audience talking over their burgundy wine, laughing, and diamonds sparkling, chilling music everywhere. I claw at my throat to make the words come out.

Then I see him standing there, dressed in a muggle tuxedo. I fall to my knees as the strings disappear. Despair overwhelms me as I try to claw my way over to Harry's bleeding body. _Oh no, oh no_. He beckons my with a gloved hand, looking suave, debonair, classy. I feel myself wanting to be with him. _No._

I run the other way, down past the body which has pooled blood all down the stage. I run down the stairs into that rich audience and they can't even see me. They're all looking at the stage, watching the new characters come out. They don't see the body, they see make-believe. _Oh Harry, please don't be dead._

There's an alley outside. I wish it gone. It goes.

I've escaped you Tom. You see me caught in your stupid little web? Am I eleven anymore? No.

_You're just a memory Tom, just a sweet memory battered by time._

_This time I won._

_Goodbye Tom._

"Goodbye Ginny," croaks a voice from the ground. I'm in a field of gold, sweet and calm, blown about by a warm afternoon wind. I look down and see him sitting next to me, calmly sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees. I want to run, but he shakes his head, so I sit, preparing for the worst.

He rests his head against my shoulder and sighs, contented. "Love you," he mumbles indistinctly in my ear. This is just a trick, just another magic trick, my mind says, but my mouth goes with my heart. "I love you too, Tom." "Forever?" he asks and his arms wrap around me in a gentle embrace.

_Forever_, my mind says and it sounds upon the wind.

We sit there, enjoying the warm summer's day. Couples appear and begin to picnic, it becomes a perfect day in the park. A cherry tree grows and provides us with a cooling shade. I try to think of when I've been more at peace, but can't.

Tom takes my hand and by some force lifts me into the air with its sweet light. Petals fall around us in some kind of gentle dance. The other couples take flight around us and we sway with wistful abandon just Tom and me, _always._

The world dims about us and I snap awake in my bed, next to Harry. He looks like a baby, the care lines soothed over by the wash of sleep pouring around him like an afternoon shower. I stand up and look around the gloomy room.

Something tells me I should pack and leave. I realize what a danger to him I am, as I have every night where in every dream I kill him some other way. I know I should go, but I'm too selfish to leave.

Gazing out the window, into the clear night, wishing you could see the stars in cities, I sighed. _In my dreams_... that's a tragically hopeful, like alternating between terrific and terrifying. In my dreams, I never distrust Tom, but awake...

**Awake I'm doubting Tom.**

**

* * *

**

**_And since you know you cannot see yourself,  
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,  
will modestly discover to yourself,  
that of yourself which you yet know not of. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,  
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day  
To the last syllable of recorded time,  
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools  
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!  
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player  
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage  
And then is heard no more: it is a tale  
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,  
Signifying nothing._**

-**Shakespeare**

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End file.
